Cell Boosters Add a Few Bars to Your Indoor Cell Phone Signal
Cellular phones have become so common that nowadays many people even give up their landline. Everyone calls you on your cell phone anyhow, so what’s the point of keeping a home phone? But then you relocate or change operator, and suddenly your indoor cell phone reception is no longer good enough to make reliable phone calls. The result is often frustration due to missed or dropped phone calls. A few consumer-grade signal boosters are around now that promise to help you out with this – we take a look at the Wi-Ex zBoost and the Cell Ranger Port.
Why It’s Clever
I’m blessed with a good cell phone reception at home, touch wood. But when my employer decides to switch operator one day, according to my neighbor I’ll have to make my phone calls from the terrace if I want to hear what the person on the other end is saying. Maybe a nice prospect during springtime – as long as I get a solution before winter.
It’s not only at home when you might face dropped phone calls – when staying at a hotel, a conference room, on the road or other occasions you might crave a few extra “bars” on your cell phone’s display.
Most of the available cell boosters consist of an antenna and an amplifier. The antenna is placed in a spot in the room where you still have some cell phone reception – it can’t amplify what isn’t there, of course. It picks up the external antenna signal, amplifies it, and broadcasts it again inside the room or house, giving you a stronger signal where you need it. You should experience less missed or dropped calls, a better speech quality, and an increased data download speed.
There seems to be another beneficial side effect of these cell boosters: Because the reception strength improves, most cell phones will decrease their emission strength in response. This will improve battery life and at the same time send less radio waves through your brain. As long as the health hazards of cell phone use are not completely off the table, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
The zBoost cell booster from Wi-Ex claims to work with all cellular phones and wireless data cards, except Nextel. It uses an external power adapter, which makes it perfect for home use but maybe a bit less useful if you want to use it on the road too. But it does support multiple users, making it good also for small-office use. A single-user car version with a 12V adapter is also available.
The Cell Ranger Port plugs into a USB port for its power supply (no need to install software). This makes it more suitable for use in hotels, conference rooms, and the like. There’s also a Stix version that’s powered by your car’s cigarette lighter. But for that purpose I’d prefer to get the USB model and use a 12V to USB car adapter to plug it in.
Summary
- Single user or multi-user models
- Single-band or multi-frequency
- Improves downlink reception strength
- Increases phone battery life
- Works with most phones, data cards, and networks
- Car versions available
- No need to physically connect to the phone.
Tips
These products fix the more frequent downlink problems, not the uplink problems! A downlink cell phone reception issue can be recognized by the small number of signal bars on your display. When you see full signal bars but still experience dropped calls, you may be experiencing uplink problems. Sorry, but if this applies to you, you’ll have to climb on the roof to make your calls – or you could wait for the Cell Ranger HOME, which should fix uplink and downlink problems, sometime in 2009 – check the Cell Ranger website.
Both manufacturers claim that their products are designed to avoid interference with the network. Still, they’re broadcasting on frequencies that are in fact owned by the carriers. In case of doubt, you could check with your cellular operator to see whether they recommend using these products.
Where to buy
You can buy both the Wi-Ex zBoost
Check the manufacturer’s website for compatibility with your network before ordering.
Approx. price: $140 for the Cell Ranger, or $200 for the zBoost (February 2010)
Categories: multimedia,portable devices
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|2010-03-23 13:58:57 Clever & EasyThanks for the positive feedback. And also for the tip, it's something I'll certainly consider when I plan a makeover.
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